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“The entire situation smells of a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.